The God problem (part 2) [View all]
If you have not read THE GOD PROBLEM (part1), it would be helpful to do so before getting to this post.
Two generations ago, the world’s leading theological mind, Paul Tillich, who was also a distinguished student of science, struggled with how to define God in a post-Copernican age. The pre- Copernican world, including the era which produced the Bible, traditionally referred to God as a being who existed in a supernatural realm. Tillich suggested that a better way to understand God was as ”the ground of being.” Tillich, then at Harvard before moving to the University of Chicago, has since become the core theologian for modern religious studies including seminary trained persons.
To understand God as “the ground of being”—the energy in, through and underneath all that is—suggest a very different notion of revelation. If traditionally we have thought of revelation as coming down from God in one form or another, in a post-Copernican world we may see revelation coming up from the depth of human experience, a natural not a supernatural phenomenon. God is not a person, but the energy which is both under and within everything. God is not identical with nature, ala Spinoza, but the energy within everything—animate objects, history, human experience—indeed the cosmos.
We can still understand the Bible as crucial to faith if we realize that revelation does not come down from some supernatural world, but up from human experience. That is the way God speaks to us—through nature, culture and ordinary events. The Bible is the record of the human struggle to understand the meaning and purpose of life, beginning with the dynamics of culture. Pre-Copernican Biblical history is the story of a people who sought to discover this authenticity—God—from above. A post-Copernican religious people must seek to discover God within both history and nature, not as a person but as the energy which gives meaning to everything. This is the God who is not only in us, but in all things.
No one comes closer to this meaning than the author of the great poem in the second chapter of Colossians when he uses a little Greek phrase “ta panta” which means ‘all things.’ His image is the God recognized in Christ whom he describes this way. “…for in him all things, (ta panta) in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or powers…. He himself is before all things (ta panta), and in him all things (ta panta) hold together.” That image is also pointed to in the prelude to the fourth gospel. “In the beginning was the word (Greek “logos”), and the word was with God, and the word was God.” In Greek philosophy, from which the gospel writer got the word, “logos” identifies the “underlying principle governing the cosmos, the source of all human reasoning. “
When we translate this Biblical text for Asians, particularly Chinese, we use the word “Tao”. “In the beginning was the Tao.” It is the same grand idea. The Tao, or Word, is not a created thing or being, but that which is underneath and within all things (ta panta), the energy which gives life.
So what is this energy which is at the heart of the universe, and which we call God? We must have ordinary understandable ways to both access it and express it. So we call it love, justice, peace, equity, purpose, meaning. While Asians call it the Tao, Greeks called is Sophia—wisdom. Every religion has buried within it this sense of wonder about what is beyond and underneath all creation. The thrust of this energy was best philosophically depicted by Teihard de Chardin’s omega point, and Bergson’s élan vital. It is what makes the universe alive! The God of this notion is the heart and substance of all things. (ta panta)
A third post will discuss the development of religious institutions from this concept of God.
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